A very bad week in Florida

[Dan Gibson]

Maybe this is just a language barrier

Why do you keep saying he was not going to get you through the course? This is totally the wrong attitude. The student must get themselves through the course. The instructor provides knowledge, tools, experience and critiques to help you achieve the goal. After that, it's up to the student.

There is a lot to what you say.
I have never had a relationship with an instructor break down before. This time it did almost straight away. I knew that he was not going to get me through the course.

The course was structured with several spare days. We could have used those to build my skills up to the required level, I wasn't anywhere near as bad as Martin said in his letter to Tom Mount (which is largely a fairly obvious work of fiction). Instead we just kept on finning thousands of feet every day.

 

[Vtdiver2]

I know I said I was done with this thread, but a few things about this thread are bothering me, so here goes....

1. How is it a so called instructor with supposedly over 1000 dives is still having bouyancy control issues? IMO that should have been dealt with long ago.

2. If this person knew he was taking a course for over a month and had time to read, why wasn't he working on his skills as well, so he could reach his valve and do all the prerequisite skills before starting the course? That makes absolutely no sense to me.

3. Why is it people are willing to follow him from website to website, even joining new sites to refute the stories and uphold others reputations, but no one, not even former students perhaps, are willing to do it for him?

Perhaps Brucie has good explanations for these and other questions....but to me, while it seems there is enough blame for both parties to share, Brucie's story doesn't add up. What really pi$$es me off, is that I'm still thinking about this. What a waste of my time.
C-Dawg

 

[Bruciebabe]

I know I said I was done with this thread, but a few things about this thread are bothering me, so here goes....

1. How is it a so called instructor with supposedly over 1000 dives is still having bouyancy control issues? IMO that should have been dealt with long ago.

It was. I have GUE Fundementals and have taught PADI PPB. You are making the mistake of believing the lies that Martin sent to Tom Mount in his defence.

2. If this person knew he was taking a course for over a month and had time to read, why wasn't he working on his skills as well, so he could reach his valve and do all the prerequisite skills before starting the course? That makes absolutely no sense to me.

You are right. I made exactly this point in my original post here: http://www.scubabrucie.com/dive/2007/03/28/an-expensive-lesson/
Basically my problem was that my drysuit skills were not in the same league as my wetsuit skills. But that was a) not addressed in the time (we had far more days than the course requires) b) Was nowhere near as bad as Martin says in his defence statement to Tom Mount. For instance he says he helped me down from the ceiling. This never, ever happened. c) Was no excuse for 8 days of constant beration. I really, as a fully grown intelligent human being, do not have to put up with this primitive caveman/military behaviour. I have never come across it before in diving.

3. Why is it people are willing to follow him from website to website, even joining new sites to refute the stories and uphold others reputations, but no one, not even former students perhaps, are willing to do it for him?

This is Lord of the Flies syndrome. Basically there was a clique who had taken over a UK diving website so that non clique members were constantly destroyed. I was involved in cleaning up this forum. Those ex clique members are obviously sore that they lost and have nothing better to do with their lives than follow me round with gratuitous, mindless insults. You can see it very clearly on this thread. None of them know me, none of them have ever met me and none of them has ever dived with me. They are just trolls of the worst kind, causing trouble for the sake of it.

Perhaps Brucie has good explanations for these and other questions....but to me, while it seems there is enough blame for both parties to share, Brucie's story doesn't add up. What really pi$$es me off, is that I'm still thinking about this. What a waste of my time.
C-Dawg

This is very simple. My original post is the truth. It is what happened. Martin's statement was in defence of this to Tom Mount. It contains a lot of lies. Anyone who has cave dived will see these in the statement. He was painting me as black as he could to protect his position.

 

[rjack321]

There is a lot to what you say.
I have never had a relationship with an instructor break down before. This time it did almost straight away. I knew that he was not going to get me through the course.

The course was structured with several spare days. We could have used those to build my skills up to the required level, I wasn't anywhere near as bad as Martin said in his letter to Tom Mount (which is largely a fairly obvious work of fiction). Instead we just kept on finning thousands of feet every day.

Brucie,
Take some responsbility for you own abilities or lack thereof.

Ps I love how someone has substituted avatar's for everyone in this thread. Cool beans.

 

[Dan Gibson]

I'm not seeing the avitar changes, but the other April 1st threads are great!

Brucie,

Ps I love how someone has substituted avatar's for everyone in this thread. Cool beans.

 

[Terry H]

This is Lord of the Flies syndrome. Basically there was a clique who had taken over a UK diving website so that non clique members were constantly destroyed. I was involved in cleaning up this forum. Those ex clique members are obviously sore that they lost and have nothing better to do with their lives than follow me round with gratuitous, mindless insults. You can see it very clearly on this thread. None of them know me, none of them have ever met me and none of them has ever dived with me. They are just trolls of the worst kind, causing trouble for the sake of it.

Dont be shy say the name

The forum in question was Divernet and it has always been knicknamed handbag
net cause of the spats that you get on there. Like any forum there was a long
established core that used to chat about anythng, sometimes not even scuba :11:

Nobody cared if it wasnt, just didnt bother reading them, that is until BB came
along :shakehead

Suddenly this group of mates became a "clique" and the downfall of the forum.
Our friend became very vocal and abusive, resulting in a massive increase in the
verbal fights etc. With almost no moderation it got so bad that many had enough
and moved over to another forum, YD.

No chance of being followed, cause he had been banned for a very nasty personal
insult to one of the female members.

In the meantime, most of us just stopped replying and finally with the introduction
of new software, were extremely pleased to discover the Ignore button

Best bit about fora is that its public record. What we posted and what's
been said back, is there for all to see and not so easy to dismiss.

 

[GDI]

Ok Bruciebabe
I do not know you but I do believe to give a guy a fair chance.

I have read this thread enough. I am willing to give you the opportunity to prove yourself as the cave diver you claim you can be. I have read your bio here as posted on scubaboard and with what you write you should have had no problem with completeing this course. That is all subject to the instruction you have previously received. I am about the instruction and not the card. I have come to expect that for the most part a students previous instruction means little to me when I meet them for the first time. I have to go by what my standards are. Again I state:Not every instructor is suited to every student. So with this in mind I am willing to meet with you and run you through some prerequisit fundamentals and a cave training review to the level you hold a c-card for by any agency. I do cave diving skill reviews at no cost, asking only for a donation to be made to the NACD. You will need to bring with you all the certification cards you have and you will be reviewed in the same equipment that you were wearing with the other instructor. We will critique the outcome regardless of the performance. I will not berate you but do not expect me to be all positive reenforcing. I will call it as I see it and some things will be negative. You will be put into scenarios and expected to think. At the Intro cave level I do not want to see any hands in the silt, any knees down, any fins fluttering or bouncy buoyancy. I expect a clean equipment setup. If you do something one way I will ask you why you do it that way and expect a logical answer with some thought behind it. Afterall in the end it is the environment which will tell you if it works or not. You will be multi-tasked and pushed to what I see as your limits. Should a real situation occur I expect you to think it through and solve it with no help from me. We will also cover some basic cave acdemics I can match cylinders in metric or imperial..
Understanding that you have some traveling to do I am willing to work with you on a schedule.

No tricks everything up front, DO YOU ACCEPT MY OFFER?

 

[Meng_Tze]

No tricks everything up front, DO YOU ACCEPT MY OFFER?

As they say: The proof is in the pudding.....

I would take up this very generous offer..... On the same token GDI, can we get a high level report out to confirm the outcome of this?

 

[Trickie Dickie 99]

This is Lord of the Flies syndrome. Basically there was a clique who had taken over a UK diving website so that non clique members were constantly destroyed. I was involved in cleaning up this forum. Those ex clique members are obviously sore that they lost and have nothing better to do with their lives than follow me round with gratuitous, mindless insults. You can see it very clearly on this thread. None of them know me, none of them have ever met me and none of them has ever dived with me. They are just trolls of the worst kind, causing trouble for the sake of it.

Poor old Bruceie. Cliques to the right of him, Cliques to the left of him, Cliques in front of him. Into the Valley of Death rode Poor Brucie.

(Apologies to Lord Tennyson)

So what about that Motoring Forum you were banned from? Lightning strikes twice eh, you must be the unluckiest man in Britain.

 

[Doubles]

Ah, now I feel better... Decompressing from work on Friday with a nice little internet train wreck...

Bummer about work - great way to define the thread however